(1842 - 1914)

"In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a 
scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to 
submit that it is the first."
"To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice."
"The covers of this book are too far apart."
"It seems that 'we have never gone to war for conquest, for exploitation, nor for territory'; we have the word of a president [McKinley] for that. Observe, now, how Providence overrules the intentions of the truly good for their advantage. We went to war with Mexico for peace, humanity and honor, yet emerged from the contest with an extension of territory beyond the dreams of political avarice. We went to war with Spain for relief of an oppressed people [the Cubans], and at the close found ourselves in possession of vast and rich insular dependencies [primarily the Philippines] and with a pretty tight grasp upon the country for relief of whose oppressed people we took up arms. We could hardly have profited more had 'territorial aggrandizement' been the spirit of our purpose and heart of our hope. The slightest acquaintance with history shows that powerful republics are the most warlike and unscrupulous of nations."
 
Warlike America
"Every patriot believes his country better than any other country . . . In its active manifestation - it is fond of killing - patriotism would be well enough if it were simply defensive, but it is also aggressive . . . Patriotism deliberately and with folly aforethought subordinates the interests of a whole to the interests of a part . . . Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave and blind as a stone."

Collected Works 
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
 
"In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so 
highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office."
"The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as 
gambling."
"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate."
ABSENTEE, n. A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

Ambrose Bierce, US author and satirist (1842-1914) in The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

ABSOLUTE, adj. Independent, irresponsible. An absolute monarchy is one in which the sovereign does as he pleases so long as he pleases the assassins. Not many absolute monarchies are left, most of them having been replaced by limited monarchies, where the sovereign's power for evil (and for good) is greatly curtailed, and by republics, which are governed by chance.

ABSURDITY, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.

ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught.

ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught.

ACCIDENT, n. An inevitable occurrence due to the action of immutable natural laws.

ACCOMPLICE, n. One associated with another in a crime, having guilty knowledge and complicity, as an attorney who defends a criminal, knowing him guilty. This view of the attorney's position in the matter has not hitherto commanded the assent of attorneys, no one having offered them a fee for assenting.

ACCORD, n. Harmony.

ACCORDION, n. An instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.

ACQUAINTANCE, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

ADMIRATION, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.

ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.

ALLIANCE, n. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

AMNESTY, n. The state's magnanimity to those offenders whom it would be too expensive to punish.

APOLOGIZE, v.i. To lay the foundation for a future offence

APPEAL, v.t. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw.

APPETITE, n. An instinct thoughtfully implanted by Providence as a solution to the labor question.

ARISTOCRACY, n. Government by the best men. (In this sense the word is obsolete; so is that kind of government.) Fellows that wear downy hats and clean shirts -- guilty of education and suspected of bank accounts.

ARMOR, n. The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith.

BACKBITE, v.t. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

BAROMETER, n. An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having.

BEFRIEND, v.t. To make an ingrate.

BIGOT: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

BORE, n. A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

BOUNDARY, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other.

BRAIN: an apparatus with which we think we think.

CABBAGE: A ... vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

CANNON: An instrument used in the rectification of national boundaries.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: a penalty regarding the justice and expediency of which many worthy persons -- including all the assassins -- entertain grave misgivings.

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, *Cogito ergo sum* -- whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: *Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum* -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the 
folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of old 
age.

CLAIRVOYANT, n. A person, commonly a woman, who has the power of seeing that which is invisible to her patron, namely, that he is a blockhead.

CLARIONET, n. An instrument of torture operated by a person with cotton in his ears. There are two instruments that are worse than a clarionet -- two clarionets.

COMPULSION, n. The eloquence of power.

CONGRESS, n. A body of men who meet to repeal laws.

CONSERVATIVE, n. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.

CONNOISSEUR, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else.

CONSUL, n. In American politics, a person who having failed to secure and office from the people is given one by the Administration on condition that he leave the country.

CONTROVERSY, n. A battle in which spittle or ink replaces the injurious cannon-ball and the inconsiderate bayonet.

CRITIC, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him.

CYNIC, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.

DEFAME, v.t. To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.

DEFENCELESS, adj. Unable to attack.

DEGRADATION, n. One of the stages of moral and social progress from private station to political preferment.

DELEGATION, n. In American politics, an article of merchandise that comes in sets.

DELIBERATION, n. The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on.

DESTINY, n. A tyrant's authority for crime and fool's excuse for failure

DICTATOR, n. The chief of a nation that prefers the pestilence of despotism to the plague of anarchy.

DIPLOMACY, n. The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

DISCRIMINATE, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is, if possible, more objectionable than another.

DISSEMBLE, v.i. To put a clean shirt upon the character.

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

ECCENTRICITY, n. A method of distinction so cheap that fools employ it to accentuate their incapacity.

EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

EGOTIST, n: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.

ELOQUENCE, n. The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white.

EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself.

ERUDITION, n. Dust shaken out of a book into an empty skull.

EXILE, n. One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an ambassador.

EXPERIENCE, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.


FREEDOM, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either.

FRIENDLESS, adj. Having no favors to bestow. Destitute of fortune. Addicted to utterance of truth and common sense.

FUTURE, n. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.


HABEAS CORPUS. A writ by which a man may be taken out of jail when confined for the wrong crime.

HATRED: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

Heathen: n. A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel.

HELPMATE: A wife, or bitter half.

HISTORIAN, n. A broad-gauge gossip.

HISTORY, n. An account mostly false, of events mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools.

HOMICIDE, n. The slaying of one human being by another. There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy, but it makes no great difference to the person slain whether he fell by one kind or another -- the classification is for advantage of the lawyers.

HONORABLE, adj. Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."

HOUSELESS, adj. -- having paid all taxes on household goods

HYPOCRITE, n. One who, professing virtues that he does not respect, secures the advantage of seeming to be what he depises.


IGNORAMUS, n. A person unacquainted with certain kinds of knowledge familiar to yourself, and having certain other kinds that you know nothing about.

IMPARTIAL, adj. Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions.

INCOMPATIBILITY: In matrimony a similarity of tastes, particularly the taste for domination.

INFLUENCE, n. In politics, a visionary quo given in exchange for a substantial quid.

INSURANCE, n. An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table.

INSURRECTION, n. An unsuccessful revolution. Disaffection's failure to substitute misrule for bad government.


 JUSTICE, n. A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.

KILT, n. A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.

LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

LIBERTY, n. One of Imagination's most precious possessions.

LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed.

LITIGANT, n. A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.

LITIGATION, n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.


MALE, n. A member of the unconsidered, or negligible sex. The male of the human race is commonly known (to the female) as Mere Man. The genus has two varieties: good providers and bad providers.

MAMMON, n. The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

MAN: n. (1) An animal (whose)....chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. (2) An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be.

MERCHANT, n. One engaged in a commercial pursuit. A commercial pursuit is one in which the thing pursued is a dollar.

MORE, adj. The comparative degree of too much.

MOUTH, n. In man, the gateway to the soul; in woman, the outlet of the heart.


NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

NONSENSE, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary.


ONCE, adv. Enough.

OPIATE, n. An unlocked door in the prison of Identity. It leads into the jail yard.

OPPORTUNITY: a favorable occasion for grasping a disappointment.

OPPOSITION, n. In politics the party that prevents the Government from running amuck by hamstringing it.

OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including the ugly.

OPTIMIST, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

OUT-OF-DOORS, n. That part of one's environment upon which no government has been able to collect taxes. Chiefly useful to inspire poets.

OVERWORK, n. A dangerous disorder affecting high public functionaries who want to go fishing.


PAINTING, n.: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather, and exposing them to the critic.

PARDON, v. To remit a penalty and restore to the life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude.

PATRIOTISM: Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

PEACE, n. In international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

PHILOSOPHY, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing.

PHONOGRAPH, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises.

PHOTOGRAPH, n. A picture painted by the sun without instruction in art. It is a little better than the work of an Apache, but not quite so good as that of a Cheyenne.

PLAN, v.t. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

POLITICIAN, n. An eel in the fundamental mud upon which the superstructure of organized society is reared. When we wriggles he mistakes the agitation of his tail for the trembling of the edifice. As compared with the statesman, he suffers the disadvantage of being alive.

POLYGAMY, n. A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one.

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.

PREJUDICE, n. A vagrant opinion without visible means of support.

PRESENT, n. That part of eternity dividing the domain of disappointment from the realm of hope.

PRESENTABLE, adj. Hideously appareled after the manner of the time and place.

PRESIDENCY, n. The greased pig in the field game of American politics.

PRESIDENT, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom -- and of whom only -- it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.

PROJECTILE, n. The final arbiter in international disputes. Formerly these disputes were settled by physical contact of the disputants, with such simple arguments as the rudimentary logic of the times could supply -- the sword, the spear, and so forth. With the growth of prudence in military affairs the projectile came more and more into favor, and is now held in high esteem by the most courageous. Its capital defect is that it requires personal attendance at the point of propulsion.


SELF-ESTEEM, n. An erroneous appraisement.

VOTE, n.  The instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country.

WAR, n. A by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. The student of history who has not been taught to expect the unexpected may justly boast himself inaccessible to the light. "In time of peace prepare for war" has a deeper meaning than is commonly discerned; it means, not merely that all things earthly have an end -- that change is the one immutable and eternal law -- but that the soil of peace is thickly sown with the seeds of war and singularly suited to their germination and growth. It was when Kubla Khan had decreed his "stately pleasure dome" -- when, that is to say, there were peace and fat feasting in Xanadu -- that he heard from afar Ancestral voices prophesying war. One of the greatest of poets, Coleridge was one of the wisest of men, and it was not for nothing that he read us this parable. Let us have a little less of "hands across the sea," and a little more of that elemental distrust that is the security of nations. War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.

WOMAN: An animal ... having a rudimentary susceptibility to domestication ... The species is the most widely distributed of all beasts of prey ... The woman is omnivorous and can be taught not to talk.


YANKEE, n. In Europe, an American. In the Northern States of our Union, a New Englander. In the Southern States the word is unknown. (See DAMNYANK.)

"Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment."

"Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live."


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